High water near Deventer - a pencil drawing

 

We were on a short mini vacation (two nights in a hotel) in the beautiful old town of Deventer and as it is the end of winter, the water in the river IJssel was high. Some quays were flooded and on the other river bank a lot of land was flooded as well. These areas of land are designed to flood when the water is high so the towns and villages are protected.

We did go for a walk in the town, looking at wonderful old buildings and churches, but the narrow streets are not a great spot to make reference pictures. I wanted to paint or draw the skyline from the other side of the river so we went to make some reference pictures in the afternoon and I started drawing almost as soon as we got back in the hotel. On these very short trips I only bring my drawing materials, these are easy to work with and I can stop and start again when that is most convenient.

For this skyline drawing I decided to use graphite pencils for the buildings and my watercolour pencils for the nature that is in the scene. So the water, the trees in the town and in the foreground, the reeds and the strip of grassland that was not flooded are all in colour. 

The water reflected a very clear blue sky, but I have not made the sky blue in this drawing. The difference in the shades of blue are caused by the strong current of the river. The foreground is flooded grassland and there is not much current there. Many of the trees are standing in the water now, but that is not unusual in winter time, so they are expected to survive this. In fact the smallest branches were already changing colour to show that they are getting in springtime mood.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this drawing and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Impressions of "Winter on Texel"

Last week we had booked a nice hotel on our largest Wadden Island, Texel for a few days vacation. Because hotel rooms are not meant to be transformed into a painting studio, I only packed my drawing materials.
The weather turned out to be very very cold, so we did not walk outdoors as much as we usually do when on vacation.
This scene is very close to the hotel, we only had to walk over the dunes to find the North Sea coast. Sunset was to be in an hour but it was too cold, the wind was too strong to wait for it. I made some reference pictures and later in the evening I tried a graphite pencil drawing. I am not unhappy with the result - for a first try.

The second day of our vacation was still very cold with a very strong wind from the East. As we were at the western coast of the island, walking in the dunes, it was possible to make a walk of about 7 km. We did not stop long to make pictures and did not stop at all to eat our lunch (we ate that in the car, after the walk) and returned to the hotel early in the afternoon. 
This is from memory, as it was too cold to take off my gloves to hold the camera at this point. The dunes of "De Muy" - a bird protection area - were looking very unforgiving, possibly because of the winter season. I used my Tinted Charcoal pencils here on watercolour paper, as an experiment. 

The third day of our vacation we went looking for the dry sandbanks of the Wadden Sea. The most northern part of Texel is where we had to be to have a chance to see what I wanted to see. We were warned not to go walking on the dry sand because at that point it is quicksand and very dangerous. The "wad" was covered with a layer of ice,but we did see some sandbanks. Sheltered by the dunes and dykes I made some reference pictures at different places close by the lighthouse of Texel, where we had access to the shoreline.
We returned to the warmth of the hotel early in the afternoon again and I made a second graphite drawing.

These three drawings were meant to become accustomed to my pencils and to explore the possibilities they give me. 

More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com